Dust Bowl

“I wrote this song on an old 1967 Barney Kessel guitar that I got in Europe. I was in a guitar shop one day, and a guy who worked there really wanted one of my spare amps. He suggested a trade. So I said, 'Sure, just give me something cool.' He came out with this Barney Kessel guitar. I was like, 'We got a deal!' [laughs]

“Because the guitar had such a long scale, I tuned it really low, almost to A. I sat in the writing room in this house in Greece, just messing around, and this one-chord kind of song started coming to me. It sounds very simple, but the vocal really lifts the chorus.

“We recorded the song, and while we were doing the overdubs, Kevin and I looked at each other and said, ’It needs something, like a mandolin…or a…[snaps his fingers] a baglamas!’ A baglamas is a Greek instrument, very much like a mandolin, only it’s made from a gourd. I never played one before, but I tuned it to the song, and I made it work. The baglamas added a really interesting texture to the track. You wouldn’t think that a blues song would have a Greek instrument on it.

“There’s a cool spoken-word part on the track. I had my amp guy, Peter Van Weelden, do it. It makes no sense at all, but it sounds great because he has such a wonderfully deep voice. A great cameo.”